Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Gramercy, Waterside

Main menu

Daily Archives: December 8, 2014

A few plane mobiles bounce in place at the Real Life Inspired Planes booth at the Union Square Holiday Market. The booth is one of 150 to do business at the market this year. (Photos by Sabina Mollot)

By Sabina Mollot

On November 21, the annual Union Square Holiday Market opened for business with 150 booths hawking items from jewelry to clothing to artwork to toys, all from small businesses and artisans. The market, located at the south end of Union Square Park, will run seven days a week through Christmas Eve.

Since the selection of items can feel overwhelming, Town & Village has rounded up a list of suggested gifts. Many are handmade and unique items designed by local craftsmen and women.

The family of Andreas Robbins, the Stuyvesant Town man who’s been missing since last Monday, believes he may have left the city, possibly for Washington, DC.

At least that’s what they are hoping, since when he last left his apartment on 14th Street, he was suicidal and had threatened to jump off the George Washington Bridge.

However, his girlfriend Alana Dakin said there’s so far been no evidence that he even went there, and the family’s since received a tip that he was seen at Union Station in DC.

Over the weekend Dakin posted a message on the website Reddit, which has since been removed, trying to get the word out in the DC area.

“He has been struggling with depression and has been talking constantly that he wants to leave NYC, so it is very possible that he changed his mind and ran. We had a small lead that he may have been spotted in DC, so I want to get his picture out in the DC area as quickly as possible,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, Elsa Stamatopoulou, Robbins’ mother, told Town & Village that the tip about him being in DC came from a stranger. As of Monday, however, she had doubts about that rumor’s accuracy.

“People are well-meaning and we follow each lead,” she said, but added, “it’s probably not (true).” Still, she said she thinks that “If he’s well and alive, he has left the city.”

Last week, police had to temporarily call off their search for Robbins, the New York Post reported. This was due to officers being reassigned to the protests over the court’s decision on the Eric Garner case. Robbins’ distraught father, Bruce Robbins, had told the Post then that his son was suicidal.

Stamatopoulou said that since then the NYPD has continued its search and she said she wasn’t angry about the reassignments last Thursday evening. “People sometimes politicize things,” she said. “It’s just a normal thing so I’m not looking to spin this.”

Andreas Robbins and Alana Dakin(via Facebook)

She added that she hopes if anyone does think they see her son to please contact the family or police and to give Robbins a message.

“Say to him, ‘Andreas, your family and friends all love you. Come back to us,’” she said. “If what he wants is to disappear for a time, the only thing we want is to know he is safe and let him pursue whatever he wants.”

At the time of his disappearance, Robbins had his wallet with him as well as his passport. However, Stamatopoulou said that may not have been deliberate since he always carried it with him.

Melissa Patel, Andreas’s best friend and a former resident of Stuyvesant Town, said she’s hoping Robbins has simply taken off somewhere, as he has done once in the past.

She recalled how four years ago when they were in college, he messaged her on Facebook to tell her he’d left home and had gone to Spain.

“He asked me to get his valuables from his apartment,” Patel said. “I’m hoping (this is) just his reckless kind of behavior. I’m hoping it’s that versus something else.”

Dakin added that while there were no recent changes or traumatic incidents she was aware of that may have set him off, she said Robbins had been looking for a break from the city.

“It’s hard when you’re 25 and trying to figure out what you’re going to do with your life,” she said. “He’d been talking about wanting to leave the city since he grew up here and wanting to try something new.”

Robbins, who’s 25 years old, is described as being white, 6 ft. 1 ins. tall and thin with dark hair and brown eyes. He has a prominent birthmark on the right side of his nose and tattoos on both shoulders and a tattoo in Greek on his right forearm.

This is essentially the mission statement of a nonprofit organization that has been based out of the Sirovich Senior Center building on East 12th Street for the past 28 years. Called Project ORE, its focus is on helping people who fall into those categories, as well as observant Jewish seniors, whether the assistance comes in the form a hot kosher meal or advocacy in housing court.

Project ORE is named after the Hebrew word for light as well as being an acronym for Outreach to the Elderly. It’s run by the Educational Alliance, the parent organization of Sirovich as well as the 14th Street Y. While almost all of its members are seniors, Project ORE isn’t technically a senior center. In fact, to even qualify for ORE’s services, participants have to be older adults who fall into three of the following categories: Homeless, formerly homeless, mentally ill, low-income, isolated (meaning no nearby family or support network) or Jewish. To find out if someone qualifies, a would-be client is invited to come by for lunch and then an assessment is done with an on-site social worker.

Around half of the organization’s members come from the surrounding neighborhoods of the East Village, the Lower East Side and Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village. The rest, however, arrive by train from Staten Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx. There are also some homeless members living in shelters, but just a handful.

“We have very few street homeless,” said the center’s director, Tara Rullo. “I would say most live with friends or family members.”

Still, there’s no shortage of housing challenges faced by members. Project ORE’s Associate Director Jackson Sherratt noted a recent example of a client whose income was too low to qualify even for low-income housing. However, by earning $16,000 a year, the same client was also considered too rich for Medicaid. As for what ORE can do, Rullo said if a client has a history of homelessness or mental illness, the organization can apply for supportive housing.

“We can help navigate the system,” she said. “There are more housing options available and we will research and push for that person to have housing. It can be difficult to navigate. If someone’s in a shelter we’ll advocate for them because once you’re in there you need someone on the outside fighting for you.”

Then there are the clients in rent-regulated apartments who end up facing eviction due to hoarding, or worse, hoarding that leads to infestations of bedbugs. While Project ORE doesn’t employ attorneys, its social workers have advocated for tenants in court and there’s also in-house psychiatric support available that’s specific to helping hoarders. The organization will also communicate with landlords and co-op boards to assure them they’re working with the resident to alleviate the problem. And while ORE’s staffers have certainly encountered landlords who don’t want to be cooperative, they’ve yet to see a case where an accusation of hoarding is just an excuse to get rid of a low-rent paying tenant.

“The problem is real,” said Rullo, “and quite extreme. There’s all kinds of risks associated with this behavior; there’s a risk to other tenants. If you hoard, your bedbugs are my bedbugs.”

Additionally, because it’s such a widespread problem, a current goal of the organization is to provide training on dealing with the issue to other organizations and agencies, from community boards to hospitals to the FDNY. “We’ve become kind of the face of hoarding,” said Rullo. “We’ve done conferences. We’re going to do a webinar.”

For clients with a problem, clearing out apartments is sometimes done through contractors, as well as onsite psychiatric help, as long as clients agree to it.

“It’s the client’s choice; we’re not going to do it behind their back,” said Rullo. But, she added, when faced with keeping their cluttered household or being made to move, the process isn’t usually resisted. “When there’s a risk to a rent-controlled or a rent-stabilized apartment, it’s a great motivator.”

However, not all Project ORE clients have problems that require intervention services. While many are facing some kind of crisis, social isolation is also a big reason for showing up to the center.

“This is a place where they can come in and make friends or partake in Jewish services,” said Rullo.

The kosher meals are also a draw, with the center serving 40-50 people for lunch each day. At the dining room, meals are brought to clients rather than having anyone wait on line. This, said Sherratt, is to make it as different from a soup kitchen as possible so clients feel welcome to stick around.

“You’re not getting line, you’re not getting a ticket. The idea is to have a place where you’re being served,” said Sherratt. Additionally, the dining area is going to be expanded soon, to make it more like a cafe. Clients will then be able to have coffee, tea or pastries from a mobile cart and have access to WiFi. “It’s another opportunity for socialization,” said Sherratt. “They can meet a friend or maybe hear some poetry or something.”

ORE’s headquarters, located in the building’s mezzanine level, overlook East 12th Street west of First Avenue, with the dining room its main common area. On a recent day after lunch was served, there were still half a dozen seniors sitting around either chatting or dozing at their tables. Several client-made paintings were on display on the walls. In a room nearby, a few others were watching a film.

One client who was sitting in the dining room, a resident of the East Village, said he started utilizing ORE’s services after finding out about them through a friend. The man, who asked that his name not be published, said his friend had gotten sick and ended up at Bellevue Hospital. When he went to visit him, the friend asked that he let someone named Lenny from Project ORE know that he was there. When the patient’s friend went to the center to find Lenny, who turned out to be a social worker, Lenny asked him if he wanted to stay for lunch. So he did.

Ten years later, the client still comes each day after walking over from his East 4th Street apartment. He does this, he said, for the exercise as much as for the meals, which come from a kosher caterer in Brooklyn. He also enjoys the center’s classes, which include Yiddish, a torah study group and fitness.

Funding for ORE’s services comes largely from grants from the UJA Federation of New York, as well as individual donations. The annual budget is $700,000 for Project ORE as well as for Safety Net, a sister organization that’s geared towards the needs of local seniors who are homebound. At this time, Safety Net has 172 members while Project Ore has around 200. Due to a steady demand for its services, which are all offered for free, Project ORE has always run on a deficit, and Rullo said the organization is going to have to start relying more on private funds.

“We can’t fundraise enough,” she admitted, “because it’s such a needy population.” Along with donations, the organization is also seeking volunteers, especially for the holidays, to do things like help serve lunch and connect with clients.

One volunteer who was interviewed by Town & Village, Stuyvesant Town resident Dianne Vertal, said she recently got involved with ORE after hearing Sherratt speak about its mission. This was at an event at her congregation, Town & Village Synagogue. Prior to that, she’d also heard about Project ORE from a friend who’d been doing a research project on Jewish poverty in New York. When her friend mentioned that ORE needed help for a Veterans Day lunch, Vertal volunteered.

“People think it’s one of the wealthier ethnic groups,” said Vertal. But, she added, “many of our elderly present a vast array of needs.”

Post navigation

About Town & Village

Town & Village is a print newspaper that has been serving the community since 1947, covering neighborhoods in the East Side of Manhattan, including Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Waterside Plaza, Gramercy Park, Union Square, East Midtown Plaza and Kips Bay.

Keep up with us

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

About us

Town & Village is a print newspaper that has been serving the community since 1947, covering neighborhoods in the East Side of Manhattan, including Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Waterside Plaza, Gramercy Park, Union Square, East Midtown Plaza and Kips Bay.